


You Come Back

by TrenchcoatButtons



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:14:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24514429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrenchcoatButtons/pseuds/TrenchcoatButtons
Summary: A collection of semi-related flash fics centered around Sandor Clegane and Sansa Stark, spanning throughout various canons and timelines.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane & Arya Stark, Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57





	1. Fearmonger: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fear stays with you.
> 
> Sandor Clegane, book canon, in the months after the incident.

When he can stand again, walk again, he removes all fire from his room.

Being bed bound and with a face that hurt to twitch means he has lost a great deal of weight. He is bone wrapped in skin with raw meat slapped across half his skull. The agony had been so great that he had no strength to move, had needed to be tended by the Maester and the servants day in and day out. In the first days he’d pissed himself, screamed every time they touched him. Time became eternity in sweat-soaked bedding, trying to turn over only to look and see the shell of his ear left stuck to the cloth of his pillow.

No amount of screaming brings his father to see him. No amount of screaming raps Gregors knuckles. No amount of thick, pained sobbing the first time he sees his own face in the looking glass brings his mother back.

He is a skeleton parading around as a boy. The bright, shiny flesh is stretched tight over his skull, cheekbone jutting, every clench of his jaw sending waves of pain through his temple. The skin is so thin, and sometimes, if the ointments go dry or the Maester is late to change his dressings, pieces of his face get pulled off with the bandages.

When he can feed himself again, use the privy, he makes sure all the braziers are taken out of his room. He stuffs his hearth with bricks and stone, with no room for a log or anything of the sort. When he goes to sleep at night, he smells burning hair.

No one talks to him, anymore. The fire has burned away his face and it has also burned away whatever kind regard the people have for him. Second son, and now deformed. Gregor is on his way to knighthood, and the younger brother is- well it is such a shame, isn’t it? 

_He was never going to be comely_ , he hears the cook mutter. _‘Tis a pity._

His nightmares are full of Gregor, the toymaker, and fire. He is afraid to enter the kitchens, afraid to go near the smithy, afraid to step too close to the torches on the wall, the hearth where once his mother had rocked him. He bites his fingers until they bleed, sits in his cold room, and cannot find it in him to pray at all. No one is listening, no one is hearing. He passes his seventh name day lying listless on his bed, trying not to think about anything at all. 

Months after his **bedding caught fire** , he wakes up to a brazier in the corner of his room, fire crackling merrily and spreading warmth throughout the previously cold chamber. 

Some well-meaning servant, the new maid most like, has thought to warm him up. He screams, tangled in bed sheets, scrambles across the floor, sobbing and howling like a child possessed. He runs, and he runs, and he runs, and as he bolts past Gregors door he hears what must be a laugh. It must be. It has to be.

He ends up outside, bare feet in the dirt as he staggers into the courtyard. It’s a beautiful day, bright and sunny in the Westerlands. He feels the warmth on his skull where his hair was seared away, where it won’t grow anymore. The heat of it hurts.

If he goes back inside, it’ll be there. 

Panic sets in, he never wants to go back inside again. Never, never ever ever ever-

A strong hand on his shoulder. A man so tall even Sandor has to tilt his head to look up at him. His father, stern-faced and looking down at him. 

“Please-” he starts, but his father only grabs him tighter, turns him around, and ushers him back through the doors of the keep. _There’s fire in there_ , he wants to say, but he knows it will not be heard.

He's frightened. 


	2. Fearmonger: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor Clegane, book canon, the day his father dies.

At least he gets to see his father’s body.

Not that it’s the worst loss of his short life, Sandor no longer remembers his sister’s face, and his mother’s voice is little more than a fading echo. His father… well, the man leaves much to be desired. Stern, grim-faced, with jowls like some of the scent hounds in the kennels. 

He can say this, though- Castor Clegane has always managed to keep his eldest son in check.

Oh, he’s never been able to reign him in completely, but Sandor has certainly seen his father grab Gregor by the scruff and backhand the boy on multiple occasions. Gregor has been disallowed women servants when he comes home, and when he isn’t out riding with the prince or brutalizing the countryside, Ser Gregor is kept very busy by their father. 

But Gregor stands a full head taller than their father, now. A final growth spurt at fifteen shot him up nearly two feet taller than Sandor. So, when Gregor rides through the gate with their father slung over his courser like a slain buck, Sandor feels a bolt of understanding shoot through him. 

He doesn’t have a lot of time. Inhales deeply, squares his shoulders, and meets his brother in the courtyard.

_There was an accident_ , Gregor rumbles. _Father’s dead. We’ll bury him with mother, and Elinor._

Sandor doesn’t think their father deserves the honor, but it isn’t his choice. Gregor is a knight, after all. People seldom get the things they deserve. Besides, he knows better than to contradict anything the Lord of Clegane Keep says. So, Sandor nods, ducks his head, and goes about giving orders and making preparations to bury the last thing keeping he and his brother at a distance. Along the way, he packs a bag, hides it in the kennels. 

The entire time, he feels oddly watched. Gregor is never too far from him, and the feeling of dread grows so potent that he keeps getting a shiver across his shoulders. He’d thought maybe, were Gregor to make a move, he’d wait a while. But no, no Gregor doesn’t care about suspicious dead family members, he never has. He will make up a story the way their father made up the story about his bed catching fire. He will say, _Sandor was devastated, he loved our father, he was never right after the fire…_ The entire keep is on edge, and Sandor feels very much like he’s walking to the gallows when he walks to his room that night. It’s late. 

His hand is on the ring of his door when he hears the sound. Looks down and sees a shadow cross from the light beneath the wood. Terror creeps into his neck and settles beneath his tongue. He swallows.

Carefully, so carefully, Sandor lets the ring to his door go, rests it as gentle as he can against the wood and takes a careful step away from the door. He turns westward, towards the stairs.

He runs.

Sandor **hears** the sound of his door slamming open, looks back to see the hulking shape backlit against the firelight from his bedroom. It is just a glimpse, but it’s enough to send him flying down the steps. There is no one around, and while he’d always planned to leave someday, squire somewhere, get strong, the darkness of the keep and lack of any other living souls around besides himself and Gregor… 

He will have to leave on foot, flee through the fields of Lannister land to get to the Rock. Sandor dares not take a dog, dares not take a horse.  
  
Gregor will say he stole property, bring his own brother to ‘justice’.

Or maybe he’ll just ride Sandor down, cut him in two and laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise this was about guilt, not fear.


	3. Missed You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor and Sansa, show 'verse. After the War.

He’s breathing heavily, agony sharp in his lungs while he struggles to find a corner away from the aftermath of the battle. Left alone with the Red Woman, Beric dead, Arya disappeared. He keeps hearing half truths and rumors among the bleeding and the dying, things he’s trained himself to ignore until he gets confirmation. 

Or sees a corpse.

Sandor hasn’t felt this out of his own body since the Blackwater, and there isn’t a wineskin in sight, gods be fucked.

But there is a flash of red- fire? No. A willowy figure in furs breathing hard against a secluded wall. A moment of respite, like he’s looking for. Without consciously making the choice, his legs are carrying him to her, the Lady of Winterfell. It isn’t as if he hasn’t seen her since he got here, but he’d done his best to avoid interaction.

And now he’s making a direct line to it. All this time has given him room to imagine, to fantasize, to let himself think maybe maybe maybe-

Maybe Ray has a point. 

Maybe he has already been punished.

Maybe she dug those little claws into his throat for a reason.

His hand is on her jaw and all he really catches is a flash of Tully blue before Sandor crushes his mouth to hers. If he opens his eyes and there’s a dagger in his belly, so be it. For the first time in hours, there is no fire in the darkness. A slide under his thumb that tells him he’s leaving a smear of blood on that porcelain jawline, and it jars him. The kiss grows soft, agonized somehow. In the dark pits of his heart- he can’t imagine- 

He’s slow to pull away and when he does, Sandor’s still lingering close to Sansa’s mouth, fingers as gentle as he can make them despite the fact that he’s still shaking. He tilts his palm to wipe the smear of blood away, struggling to keep his eyes off hers.

“Beg the lady’s forgiveness,” he rasps, quiet in the chaos. “Been a long fucking time, for a dog not to see its master.”


	4. Claimed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor and Sansa, book 'verse. Somewhere in the nebulous, sexy future.

Occasionally, he remembers that she is a wolf. Not that Sandor ever truly **forgets** , but he finds that he constantly wants to care for her, make sure is writhing and gasping before he so much as thinks to chase after his own pleasure. 

It gives him something like absolution, penance, to press his ruined mouth to the place where hip meets groin. Leave open-mouthed kisses on the pillow soft swell and dip of smooth skin. The act is more like worship than he’s ever known, not even all the hours spent with the Elder Brother, staring up into the Stranger’s face and searching for… something. Sandor finds his salvation here, nose pressed to the downy hairs across Sansa’s navel. He’ll keep her safe, make sure she never wants for anything within his power to do. His lady, a ribbon wrapped around a sword. 

He’d mocked that, once, but seven help him, was there ever a better way to explain how she made him feel?

But she has teeth, too. Nails like kitten claws raking lines into his shoulders, shoves him around so that she’s perched on his waist, lips at the crook of his shoulder. Her teeth on his neck is such a sharp contrast to the softness of the rest of her that his hips shudder against her thigh. Groaning into the air when she bites down and sucks. It hurts, and it’s beautiful, and he feels it all the way down to his groin when Sansa takes him.

And she took him long ago, didn’t she? 

Sandor thrusts against her hip once, twice, feels his vision go white as the thought strikes him. _Hers hers hers **hers**_ to bite and claw and ravage. Spills across both their bellies, because they are not married, and she is a proper Lady, and he will only know her that way when she sees fit to say so, when his cloak is around her shoulders.

Later, rubbing the dark bruise at the hollow of his throat, the ones further down that lay on his clavicle, pectoral. People will see the first one, for certain. The Umbers and the Manderlys and fuck, even her siblings. His warped cheek stretches into a grin. Can already see the sour lemon face on Arya’s face.

The thought feels good. Not only to **belong** , but to be _taken_ and _kept_. Hers, to be wanted and shown with no shame.

He’d weep if his trousers weren’t so tight.


	5. Kindred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor and Arya, show 'verse, in the ruins of the Red Keep.

**Sandor**

* * *

Gregor's hands are at his throat, airway tight and blood pulsing in his temples. He's not quite in a panic, not yet. He's been in this position before, held at death's door with those eyes-so similar to their father's-boring down on him. It's haunted his nightmares and waking days both, so the real thing is almost... 

It's gratifying. In a horrible way. Like knowing the runt of the litter is going to die before it even draws its first breath.

Every time his blade sinks into Gregor's rancid flesh, Sandor feels his wrist get a little bit weaker, and it's right as those meaty thumbs move up to his eyelids to press inwards, to start crushing, that the panic sets in. His dagger arm is flailing upwards, trying to find purchase, and then- and then-

He hears it coming rather than see it.

The sharp whistle of steel within air, a grotesque shunk noise of bone and flesh, and Gregor's hands go loose, falling away. He slumps backwards, heels uneven on pieces of the Red Keep. He blinks blood out of his eyes, feels sweat burn in his wounds, and is absolutely fucking floored out of his mind to see Arya fucking Stark to the side, sword arm out.

Gregor's right arm is severed below the elbow, green black blood that's far too thick to be blood as Sandor knows it oozing into a puddle at their feet. The Mountain is looking down at it with a placid sort of curiosity. 

_He's not really your brother anymore, as I understand it._

The memory of a voice touches his air-deprived mind, and he shakes it away. Truth is easier to see when it's ringed in blood, he supposes.

Sandor has gawked for too long, because Gregor makes a lunge for Arya, who slips to the side like a cat, all easy grace and light of foot. She parries and ducks around him, blade glancing off his leg armor while she dances up the crumbling stairs a few feet. Gregor is turning around, and that's when Sandor finally gets the blood moving to his feet.

There is a roar that he knows, distantly, is coming from him, but it doesn't matter because he's bull rushing his brother, through the crumbled wall of the staircase and out into open air. And he's going with him, sure, why not, fine, but the beast needs to die, by flame or sword, and for the first time in his bloody life Sandor feels that someone has gotten justice- a burned boy laying weak in bed while his brother looms at the foot with a torch in hand. Grinning. Never finishing the job but keeping it in front of him. That boy, that's who it's always been about. 

But he doesn't fall like his brother.

No, he's half suspended while Gregor falls away from him, collar of his gambeson cutting into his throat as he tumbled BACKWARDS instead of forwards. 

Arya bleeding Stark is standing over him.

He tries to rasp out some sort of insult, but his throat is too raw and bruised to do so. Instead he tilts his head and spits blood into the dust at her feet.

"Fuck off." 

She's grasping the front of his gambeson now, other hand pulling from under his arm, getting him to his feet. He lets her, growling as she ushers him immediately down the stairs. 

"This place isn't safe- we have to go- come on! You're not dead, and you can walk, so move."

It's the damnedest thing. The girl really just won't let him die. No one has ever- he doesn't need one hand to count-

He moves.

* * *

**Arya**

* * *

They pass by the Mountain's corpse on the way out of the Keep. 

Against all laws of nature, despite the fact that his bones have been shattered and he lies in a puddle of his own ichor, whatever remains of Gregor Clegane still manages to twitch. Arya finds herself thinking of her list, and it seems such a long ago, far away thing all of a sudden.

They are safe now, mostly, from the crumbling walls high above, Daenarys and her dragon perched atop the Red Keep to stare out over their new dominion. So Arya does not stop Sandor from walking over to his brother.

She watches.

He lifts his boot, and it comes down once. Twice. The third strike cracks down into Gregor's skull and shatters it, brain and bone and boot pressing into the dust. 

Arya does not gag, but she does look away, and after another moment or two, Sandor returns to her side.

"I fucking told you-"

"I did."

If his voice was a rasp on a good day, Sandor's voice sounds almost wet on this, a bad day. It's gargled and nasty, and she knows he's going to need time to heal from Gregor's fists.

He stares at her, hard. There is blood all over his face, around his eyes and into his beard- he looks more the dog right now than she's ever seen him.

She relents.

"I was going to. I did. But I left you to die once, and I decided not to do it again. If that meant saving your arse or putting a blade in your heart, then that's what I was going to do."

Arya stares up at him, and she feels her lip tremble. 

"Cersei was coming down the staircase when I followed you." 

It had been quick, and strange, and... and not what she'd imagined it being. Needle had shot out almost of it's own accord, and it had barely had any blood on it when it returned to her side. The blossom of red on the Queen's chest looked like a flower.

_Brown eyes. Blue eyes. Green._

Cersei had been dead before she even hit the floor, and Arya hadn't really given her a second glance. Dead was dead was dead, and there was something more important to focus on than a dead woman.

Sandor's eyes bore into hers, she can feel it, can feel the judgment coming. It's the first time she's felt self-conscious about something in a long, long time. She doesn't know why, it's stupid, it's foolish, killing Cersei was what she came here for. It's like- it's like before. When he looked into her eyes and it felt, for a moment, like Ned Stark was telling her something from beyond the grave. Like her father is looking at her.

He nods. She feels a tightness in her chest release.

"What I told you- it's true," he rasps. "But what's done is done. You're alive. Lets get out of this cunt of a city."

"You're alive too."

"Shut up, girl."

"I'm serious." He's walking, and she's following, half running to keep up despite his heavily limping gait. "What you said, if it's so true, then it counts for you too, or else you're a liar and a coward." 

Sandor sways while turning to her, but she cuts him off before he can snarl anything at her.

"You said you've been after it your whole life, well you've got it and it's done. I've got it and it's done," she grabs his sleeve so tightly she sees him wince. "You think you're on your own."

She sees it in him, then. Fear and pain, for a flash of an instant, Arya sees the little boy he maybe was, once. She tugs his sleeve, gets him to look at her.

"I don't know what comes next either. But the pack has to stay together." He clenches his jaw, and winces in pain. Grunts in acceptance.

A dog is just a wolf gone wandering, after all.


	6. Sandor Clegane is a big grumpy baby and Sansa Stark likes him a lot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If ASoIaF was slice of life, that's what this one is, kind of. Can lowkey be seen as a successor to my other fic 'Living', if you squint. Book or show 'verse, it's ambiguous enough. Kinda.

She gives him a fucking castle.

Well, not exactly, but the lordship is passed to him, and he’s so stumped by the papers she slides to him across the table that all he can do is stare.

“Should Lady Beth Cassel make herself known, though she has not been heard nor seen since entering the Dreadfort,” Sansa had given him a very pained look. “All holdings, titles, and land shall be returned to her, as is her rightful due.”

“You’ve gone mad, fucking mad-” he wants to argue, but all he can do is splutter in confusion. In the weeks since his return, they had been playing a curious game, of sorts. More so than his distaste in being gifted a lordship, he could not help but see a line of events laid out before him.

She had that look in her eye.

In the beginning, he’d been named Captain of the Guard, head of her Queensguard. That was fine, if anything it was welcome- it allowed him time with her, without prying eyes and in a manner that would not be questioned. If he was in her chambers alone, they were conferring over defense, the structure and rebuild of Winterfell’s militia. If they were among the rest of the house, it was within his rights to speak with more familiarity than anyone else might.

That first day, sat by the steaming pools of the Weirwood, they’d done something they’d never done before. Spoken, open and free with no eyes on them, no pretense. There were no ‘Sers’ from her lips, and he found this grown woman far easier to talk to than the girl she’d been. She was quick, she did not falter, and the fantasies he’d once seen dancing before her eyes were tempered. That she was so different from when he knew her before was… sobering. A spark of pain that that girl had been murdered the same as the boy he’d been had when he was put to flame. But there had been moments… a smile, the way she had hesitantly pressed her fingertips against his palm, looking up at him. He didn’t know what to make of it. They talked about where they had been, what they had done. She’d removed one of her gloves and chosen to warm it in his palm. 

So strange, so difficult to allow. But he was tired, bone weary after months of travel and near-death. She wasn’t fire, she was sunlight, warm like a stone exposed all day to heat. They shook their heads over her sister, she shed tears over her brothers, his jaw grew tight when he spoke of Gregor. He felt like a boy again, before the fire, pressing his cheek to hot brickwork at the height of summer in the Westerlands. Feeling it seep into his skin along with the cool breeze from the east.

By the time they chose to retire, it had been hard to walk away. 

“I’ll have Lanard get a room settled for you. A hot bath too, I should think. The evening meal is not for an hour or so, but if you would prefer to get something to eat sooner rather than later, tell the kitchens I sent you.” 

Her hand was still in his.

“I can wait,” he’d rasped. For an instant, in the overcast haze of winter and red leaves, he’d felt like the rest of the world was little more than white fog. Just haze, unimportant, barely there. 

He’d never be a knight, and she was long since a maid to be rescued.

But kissing her at the gates to the weirwood had been a certain kind of fantasy given flesh. As if he’d lost about twenty years and she was still a girl, shy and taking first steps into passion. He’d gone back to her looking up at him, moments before. That girl from Winterfell, years ago, she’s still there. Bits of her, anyway. They seemed to reach down his throat and wake up the little boy playing beside the fire. 

So he kisses her firmly, hands on her jaw, and for an instant they are just a page in a story.

The days that followed, Sandor became aware of the fact that he was courting Sansa Stark.

Fucking ridiculous.

But it was true- he stole kisses around corners and within alcoves. She smacked his hands away when they ventured a little too far down her sides. Sly smirks and red cheeks kept carefully under control as they exited into the courtyard. Tutted at him when he muttered something rude.

He did not push. He was not Gregor. 

But when they were alone, hunched over her desk while she outlined her thoughts and asked his opinion, he’d more than once caught her hand on his own thigh, fingers pressed down enough to feel the muscle above his knee. Watched her swallow, move the hand to his knuckles instead. 

And when he retired to his rooms for the night, he fucked into his fist to the image of her slender neck, the scent of her hair. Another thing he hadn’t done in ages, something he’d left behind even before the Elder Brother pulled him out of the grave. Before that he’d been on the road with Arya, and then after that there had been just one pile of horse shite after another. But now he has time to himself, and a woman kissing him when no one is looking. 

So he groans and spills and sleeps deeply.

There had been… gifts. Dried oranges coated in sugar from White Harbor that he’d passed her one evening. Not quite the tart lemons she favored, but still something to bring a smile to her face. A cloak handed to him, big enough for his broad frame and warm enough to shield against the cutting winds in the north. A trio of snarling dogs sewn on the edge so that it rested against his breast when pulled around him.

As absurd and incomprehensible as he found it, they were… courting. Their affections had been made plain to one another. And not in the way things had gotten done in Kings Landing- no, they were not being pushed into a match, nor being married away out of spite, pawns in some larger game they had no heart for. It frequently left him baffled and having to smack his face, as if an elaborate, bizarre trick was being pulled.

But the Lordship was a thorn in his side. It spoke of political games, maneuvering, appearances. He was an outsider here in the north, a second born southerner with little to his name, no knighthood, and a reputation for violence only eclipsed by the inner circle of the Lannisters. To give him this was… it was a scheme. A play to make him look better. Validating him in the eyes of her court as someone she could be openly seen with. 

She wanted it to be legitimate. The realization came to him while he sat there, laying out her reasonings.

“In the meantime, they will be passed to you. The Cassels were always loyal and true to the Starks, and we’ve lost a great many Houses- between the sacking and the wars, the North needs strong leadership on all fronts. You would of course stay on here, at Winterfell, but for the people living there to know that they have a voice here is vital to making sure they know they are cared for,” she gathered up some of her other papers, one of which appeared to be a list of names. “And it is only a day's ride, two if the weather is poor. You’ll choose and set up a regent in your stead, keep a correspondence- occasional visits to ensure the people are well and the regent working in accordance to…”

“You think they’ll be grateful to have a old Lannister dog speaking for them?” He interrupts her, his voice feels hollow. She can paint it how she likes, he knows the path she’s taking. What she’s scheming. 

She gave him a look. He did not miss the cheeky curve of her mouth. “You’ve hardly reached thirty and six. From what Bran has written, Jaime Lannister looks  _ far  _ worse than you do.”

He gave HER a look. Added a growl and bent across the table with an elbow. “I didn’t mean age.”

“You fought for Winterfell. You went over the wall. You saved Arya Stark from death, you slayed an undead Dragon at the height of battle. And returned to the North after it seceded,” she puts the papers down again. “Should anyone doubt your loyalty by now, they are no allies of mine.”

She goes to stand, but he’s faster, gets up and grabs her arm. Maybe too tight at first, but he loosens the grip before he can hate himself for it later. “Little bird,” he rasps. “I see what you’re doing.”

Sansa’s cheeks begin to pinken, and he only catches the hint of color before she sets her jaw and peers at him.

“You mean to give me a lordship so as not to embarrass yourself.” 

“Excuse me?”

“Aye, that’s it, then? Court will want you with a king, your people will want you with a king, so you need a lord to marry. Can’t very well be seen wearing the colors of a westerman, and one with no House to his name. You mean to set me up nice and pretty, give me duties and lordships and titles to appease them, don’t you?” he points a finger in her face, hurt and rage building. “Let me tell you, girl, you can dress a dog up all you like, it’s still a dog. Don’t think prettying me up will do your name any good, not when you’ve got Glovers and Manderlys sniffing around your skirts.” 

She wrenches her arm out of his grip, red creeping up her neck. 

“I will never marry another  _ lord _ ,” she says quietly, voice carefully controlled. “Remind yourself,  _ ser _ , that twice I have been wed against my will. That I no longer have voices whispering over my shoulder about what I can and can not do. That I am a Stark, and that I fully intend to make sure the North knows that so long as it has a Queen, it will never want for a King.”

She stands up straighter, shoves the papers at him across the table. He spies a list of names, his own among them. Tuttle. Blanetree. Snow. Teela. Clegane. Wendwater. Written beside them are other names, names he knows to be extinct. Bolton. Elliver. Karstark. Umber. Cassel. Brownbarrow.

“You are not the only one on my list, Sandor, I have a country to rebuild, and need practical people to help me. You think after everything, I would be so worried about people thinking ill of me? I am already sullied goods in the eyes of many,” Sandor can’t speak against that. He knows it’s true. “You not being a noble is the least of their worries, when I am still the twice married  _ Baelish whore. _ ” 

He sees her eyes go a little glassy when she says it, and Sandor feels his shoulders lower some. He’s already standing, but he feels as if he’s just stood up. Sansa presses her hands up against her mouth and exhales slowly through her nose. In. Out. 

The rumors and whispers had been hard on her. Sometimes, he forgets himself.

The room is very still, save for the small pops of the fire. The wind against her window.

What does he do here? What does he say? He is not a man of soft words, wouldn’t know what to do with them even if he knew which ones to use. He has to force his body to take the few steps forward to touch her, hands on her shoulders. Sandor knows how much she has on her plate, the constant meetings, the numbers, the names, the rush to repair the glass gardens so that they can grow their own food again. Winter has come, and the north that Sansa has inherited is struggling in the wake of a great war on top of it.

Their only blessing is that with so many dead, there are not as many mouths to feed.

“Don’t mind what I say,” he grunts, tucking her head beneath his chin to smother her against his chest. He’s too rough and he knows it, pulling her into the rough fabric of his gambeson so much that she stumbles. “Barking up a tree, it’s all I know to do. ”

He feels her tilt her head so her nose isn’t mushed into his chest, and the great sigh she lets out is… intimate, somehow. Relief that spreads from her to him, and Sandor sags with the release of it. Rubs the heel of his palm up and down her back in silent apology. She isn’t crying, but she pulls back enough to look at him before she’s pushing him backwards until the backs of his knees hit her bed. 

Sansa guides him down to sit on it, and then she’s climbing in beside him. He’s briefly concerned, feels a jolt to his groin, but she fusses and arranges the two of them so they’re lying next to one another, fully clothed. 

He doesn’t know what to do.

“Put your arm around me,” she instructs, like she can read his mind. He glances towards her door, but finally does, tucks his hand around her belly. Sansa’s hand slides up to hold his wrist. “Other one too, if you like.”

When did she get so bold? This is… not at all what a lady worried about her appearance would do. He feels a fool, and his guts twist in self disgust.

Sandor swallows, shifts around until he’s got his arms around her comfortably. His feet are hanging off the end of her bed, so he has to bunch his knees up. He can feel the creases in his brow, torn between confusion and not knowing what they’re up to, here. Seven help him if any of her maids walk in to find… whatever this is.

But she doesn’t care about that, does she? She’s showing him.

“I don’t want to give you the lordship to make you look better,” she says softly, head pillowed on his bicep. “I want good people in places where they can do their best. To visit, make sure all is taken care of. Work with the regent. I thought about… the Dreadfort is more you, a stronghold. And it needs a strong hand to clean it’s history… But it’s far away.”

It clicks, suddenly. Laying on the bed like this. To be close. Reasoning. Sandor curls around her a little tighter, buries his nose in Sansa’s hair and inhales amongst a sea of copper.

“Don’t want to be called ‘Lord’.” 

She lets out a breathy laugh. “Take a leaf from Arya’s book, then. Demand they call you what you want to be called.”

Sansa lifts a hand, and Sandor feels it drift up past his cheek. It hovers around the warped flesh of his temple for a moment, fingers light, before curling through his hair and stroking lightly. 

He feels his entire body shiver, and closes his eyes in relief.


	7. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Book canon. Alayne meets a man in the Vale. Hugs hugs hugs hugs ;;

A stableboy named Pen comes and tugs on her arm. He is a sweet lad, of an age with Sweetrobin but with the robust constitution of the small folk on his side. Dusky hair and missing a front tooth, he requests her help in the tack room. The stable master has been in a foul mood of late, he tells her through his lisp. All the new arrivals and what not, and she's a Lord's bastard! Could she come look at the tack room and tell him if he ought organize it again? And the boy looks fretful enough that she follows him without fuss.

Nevermind that she doesn't know a bit about horse maintenance or the upkeep of their equipment. If he needs advice on whether or not the room is clean- well that's easy enough.She lets Pen lead her to the tack shed, an attached space that runs the length of the stables within the Gates of the Moon. She's about to tell him that it looks suitable enough to avoid the stable master's ire when she hears the door swing shut and latch behind her. It's quiet, the scent of horse and leather strong. And something else, she can't place it. 

"Pen? _Pen_ open the door, what have you-" she hears a quiet shuffle. A handful of footsteps from behind her.

Panic. Raw fear flows through Alayne as she struggles to open the door. Alayne should not be alone like this, Pen has either played a truly terrible prank or- or-

Someone knows.

Breathing hard, she steps away from the door and looks down the shed, past shelves and pegs and hooks hung with bridles, blankets, and other accoutrements. In the middle of the path, there's a man, hands pulling a cowl away from his face.

The fear drains away so fast she feels she might fall over, and Sansa Stark meets the mans eye.

He looks... much the same as she remembers, but not entirely so. He seems stronger, younger, rested. What must have once been a Septon's robe still covers his chest and arms, hanging low near his knees, but there are pieces of armor too, a firm leather plate among the pieced together set on one thigh. His hair is shorter, too, leaving the warped and scarred half of his head open to the world.

Sandor Clegane hesitates, glances at her and then at the ground. "The boy was well paid for silence," comes the rasp. "No one will know you met me here."

Of course he would know her terror, of _course_ he would prepare and expect the worst. She has learned to do much the same. She has learned so much since she last saw the Hound, in no small part due to his efforts, as poorly made as they were. He had been there for it all, ever since Lady... Ever since her _father_...

Just like that it all comes soaring into her heart, her father and mother, her brothers, Arya, Lady, everything. It hurts, it hurts so much and she has tried so hard to be strong and not think on them- but it hurts. Oh, it _aches_.

Sansa's feet carry her down the shed and she collides into him, fingers clutched into scratchy wool and face weeping against Clegane's chest. She sobs and squeezes his middle, and feels two hands come up to rest on her shoulders. She expects him to shove her away, say something cruel and unkind. He does not suffer the weeping of women- no, that had been Joffrey. Clegane had never said anything of the sort. Whatever cruelty she expects doesn't come. Instead there's a weighty pause, and then one huge hand is cradling the back of her head, thumb sliding back and forth in comfort. She feels secure. She feels cared for. Her weeping intensifies. 

"Breathe, little bird, deep breaths. You'll do no good fainting," she tries, tries to match the steady inhales she feels against her nose and eyelids. His massive lungs and steady heartbeat could lull her to sleep, but instead they ground her, calm her, and after a time he guides her over to sit on a pile of horse blankets. Clegane kneels there before her, hands clasped in his. She takes shaky breathes and nods, meets grey eyes.

"There now," he rasps. "Better?"

For the first time in a great long while, Sansa Stark smiles.


End file.
